Car sales November 2012: Winners and Losers

Toyota has again dominated the November sales charts, with three models in the top four for the second consecutive month.

The Toyota Corolla was the best selling car of the month, with 4190 units delivered across the country, while the Toyota Camry posted 3145 to push past the Toyota HiLux (3059) and squeeze it onto the bottom step of the podium.

The Mazda3 took second place this month, with 3703 sold, enough to make it the country’s top seller year-to-date, with 39,479 units shifted to November. With one selling month to go, however, the Hilux is 1953 sales behind, the Corolla a more substantial 4223 units adrift. Unless Toyota’s utility can pull out a blinder final month, the Mazda3 is all but assured to maintain its top-seller position for the second year running.

The total Australian new-car market has also cracked the one million sales mark for the year, with the December rush still to come. November tallied 98,347 sales, up 9693 units or 10.9 per cent on November 2011, while a total 1,016,605 sales year-to-date is a full 90,627 sales or 9.8 per cent in front of last year.

Although locally manufactured Ford sales are down 11.7 per cent year-to-date, compared with a 5.5 per cent drop for Holden, both companies were victorious in the pick-up segment.

The Ford Ranger notched up 2187 sales for the month, taking seventh place, only one rung behind the Nissan Navara (2412). Year to date, the Ranger has now moved into tenth place overall (with 16,459 sales) edging the Volkswagen Golf off the charts (its 992 sales in November upped its annual tally to just 16,119).

Although the Holden Cruze (2115) assumed eighth position, the Holden Colorado was only one place behind with 1956 sales – sales of the 4×2 model are up 44 per cent year on year.

Thanks to Ranger and Focus (rounding out the top 10 with 1920 sales), the Blue Oval managed keep Hyundai in fourth place overall – 8528 sales in November versus 7756. An improving Honda (4005) nabbed Subaru (3212) for ninth place.

The fight in the light car segment intensified this month, with the Hyundai i20 posting 1814 sales, ahead of the Mazda2 (1561) and Toyota Yaris (1395). All three trumped next-best Barina (1021) and Micra (1009).

Similarly, and proving how dominant the top small cars are, the Corolla and Mazda3 almost doubled the third best selling small car, Cruze, while the Toyota more than doubled the fourth-placed Focus, and the Mazda more than doubled fifth-placed Hyundai i30 (1886 sales – down 3.4 per cent year to date).

In the medium segment, the Camry recorded six times the sales volume of the next best-selling mid-sizer, the Mazda6 (573 sales).

The SUV segment continues to lead the charge in increasing volume in the overall market, with small SUVs up 55.4 per cent year to date, medium rising 21 per cent, and large increasing by 22 per cent. By comparison, in the passenger car listings, small cars are up only 4.1 per cent, small increased by 2.5 per cent,and medium is up 17.4 per cent (natually, rising with Camry). Larger cars are down 21.4 per cent year to date.

Yet no SUV ascended into the top 10 for November. The top-selling SUV for the month is the Mazda CX-5 (1637 sales), followed by the Nissan X-Trail (1326) and Dualis (1293), then the Ford Territory (1296). Awaiting a new model, the Toyota RAV4 dropped 30 per cent for the month, with just 1101 sales.

With one month to go, the forecast is for a record 1.106 million new vehicles to be purchased in full-year 2012, eclipsing the previous-best of 1.050 million recorded in 2007.